December 31: "Charles Sinclair Leaves PNP"

1917: An end-of-year report states that nine contingents with a total of over 10,000 volunteers have left Jamaica during 1917 for England to join the British armed forces to fight against Germany in the Great World War.

1934:Otto Abels Harbach and John Kenyon Nicholson, two of America’s well-known prolific playwrights, arrive in the island with their wives and children.

1936: The large number of Syrian Merchants involved in shopkeeping in Haiti, and who are being forced to leave the republic under a recent order to wind up their businesses as retail storekeepers and grocers, will not be migrating to Jamaica as was feared by the local mercantile community. The attitude of the Jamaican Government on alien immigration has led them to conclude that they will not be permitted to land here. Some have now decided to go to Central American countries while others will return to their native land in the Middle East.

1937:Captain George Lindsay decides to dispose of the Bournemouth Bath, off Windward Road, in the eastern section of Kingston. Lindsay has handed over the property to the Government of Jamaica for it to be utilised for any purpose it sees fit.

1940: An advertisement in The Gleaner states: “The Jamaica Deaf and Dumb Association in aid of the deaf and dumb has most unexpectedly benefited from the receipt of the sum of £18 from ‘The Glass Bucket Club.’ The committee wishes to thank all the donors for their most kindly action.”

1952:Recordings by Claude McKay of three of his poems have surfaced and plans are finalised for these recordings to be pressed and released. The poems are ‘Bow Down’, ‘The Tropics of New York’ and his immortal, ‘If We Must Die’. In addition, McKay recorded comments about the unique history of ‘If We Must Die’. Arrangements have been made for the recordings to be available from the offices of The Gleaner Company.

1957: A Monymusk cricket team from Clarendon led by Johnny Tate, defeats Guantanamo cricket club at Rauchan Park in Cuba, scoring 163 for 8 declared, and bowling out the home team for 69. Clinton Kenny, who is an all-rounder on the Clarendon Nethersole Cricket team since 1947, hits the top score of 61 and takes 3 wickets for 20. Roland Campbell of Monymusk captures 5 wickets for 34.

1984:Charles Sinclair resigns as a member of the People’s National Party after 14 years. Sinclair was the former president of the Senate and was mayor of Montego Bay for three terms. He has accepted an invitation by Prime Minister Seaga to sit in the Senate again, this time as an independent senator.

1990:Virginia DaCosta, a mother of seven in St Mary, becomes a Courts Stores millionaire and collects her first cheque for $100,000. Her luck came after the purchase of a television set, dining table and living room suite from the Courts store in Port Maria. She will receive $500,000 cash, free groceries for life valued at $360,000, a jet-set package holiday valued at $26,000, and an outfit of new clothes by a leading designer, valued at $20,000.